Browser Wars: OneRiot Aids Internet Explorer 8

By Eric Brown | Published Jan 29, 2009

OneRiot hopes to help IE8 As the browser wars rage on, third-party extensions, plug-ins and add-ons have become key players. With Google Chrome out of beta, Microsoft Internet Explorer is working hard towards a full public release. Here to help them on their way is OneRiot’s Hot Topic Web Slice.

OneRiot is a startup that combines search with social. Like many search engines, with OneRiot you can search for content. But unlike most search engines, OneRiot prioritizes content based its popularity with the OneRiot community. The system judges popularity and rates it with either “emerging, surging, or raging”.

An example of how this works, if you go to Google and search content management the search will pull up Wikipedia entries first and then a seemingly random variety of sites set to rank highly for that key phrase.

But if you search the same thing on OneRiot it pulls up information that is relevant and highly sought for that day. Many times these items will be breaking news that won’t even show in the top 20 on Google.

OneRiot Social Search

The OneRiot Hot Web Topics Internet Explorer 8 add-on brings everything from the emerging to the surging right to your browser. You can stay up to date with current news that is relevant instead of random. In a world with as much news happening daily as this world has, finding what is relevant is no longer a chore.

The goal is to expand Internet Explorer "beyond-the-page" and provide additional value past just basic browsing. Mozilla's FireFox has been the leader for some time now where extended use in a browser is concerned.

Additional Add-ons for IE8

OneRiot is far from the only webslice available for IE8. Others include a variety of slices from SitePoint.com, EBay, StumbleUpon and others.

In addition, there are add-ons for visual search from Google, Amazon, Wikipedia, etc., as well as a growing list of accelerator add-ons for bookmarking, emailing, search, maps and more.

Will third party add-ons become the defining force in the browser wars?

Probably not, but they will have an impact on whether FireFox, Internet Explorer, Chrome, or a new one not yet here will come out victorious — provided there ever is a victor.